The All-Star game is in less than two weeks and in accordance with the triplicate-signed-in-blood contract I signed when I started writing about baseball, that means I am required to make public my opinions of who should be or who will be on the team. I’ll try to follow the actual rules of picking the team, which include:

21 position players (one more than last year.)
13 pitchers (pitchers who throw in the last game before the break are eligible to be chosen for the team, but may not pitch in the game.)
At least one representative from each team must be chosen.
Fans vote for the starters

Another injury takes away an obvious choice in Dustin Pedroia (BOS, .292 avg, 12 HR, 41 RBI, .871 OPS, 3.4 WAR). All of the other middle infield candidates are pretty interchangeable (read: unimpressive), so that was part of my reasoning in picking Bautista (2B/OF) and Young (SS/2B).

Vernon Wells (TOR, .280 avg, 19 HR, 47 RBI, .888 OPS, 2.5 WAR) is a victim of the every-team-must-have-a-representative rule. Luke Scott (.274 avg, 12 HR, 30 RBI, .868 OPS, 1.3 WAR) was my choice from Baltimore in the draft I wrote yesterday but he pulled a hamstring hitting a homerun and I can’t bring myself to choose Ty Wigginton. The Orioles are just an all around awful team.

Cliff Lee has been out of this world since spending the first month of the season on the DL. Girardi could also (and probably will) choose Phil Hughes (NYY, 10 W, 3.58 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 8.28 K/9, 3.39 FIP, 2.0 WAR) or CC Sabathia (NYY, 10 W, 3.33 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 7.19 K/9, 3.93 FIP, 1.9 WAR) instead of some of the choices I made.